A friendly conversation between the President and the Governor – supporting one another.

Guam is a United States territory in the Western Pacific Ocean. It passed from Spain to the USA in accordance with the Treaty of Paris following the Spanish-American War. Guam was of strategic importance during both the World Wars. The Japanese occupied Guam for almost three years, until recaptured by the United States in August of 1944. Guam was also important militarily during the Vietnam War, the site of Andersen AFB.

Guam is a little more than 2,000 miles from North Korea.

You can also see on this map just how close North Korea is to Japan.

It was heartening to read that Japan has made an official statement that they will support the United States and Guam militarily if North Korea should launch a missile towards Guam, or any other US territory. Being as close as they are to NK, Japan is naturally quite concerned.

Japan would retaliate against North Korea if Pyongyang launched a missile attack on the United States, Japanese Defense Minister Gen Nakatani said. Nakatani said Sunday Japan would defend the U.S. because a North Korea missile attack would likely result in serious damage.

Nakatani’s remarks were expected to provoke a strong response from North Korea. They came as Washington and Tokyo have revised their defense guidelines to allow Japan to expand its role globally to help U.S. forces in military crises.

South Korea defense observers called Nakatani’s vow to avenge the U.S. rare. “South Korea, the U.S. and Japan are supposed to share information on Pyongyang’s possible missile launches under their trilateral arrangement for military intelligence,” one South Korean defense leader told the Korea Times. “Japan needs to seek prior approval before launching an attack against Pyongyang as such an attack would have a great impact on the Korean Peninsula.”

Japan has long had a difficult relationship with Kim Jon Un’s North Korea. “Since the succession of Kim Jong-un, Tokyo has put greater emphasis on ensuring it is prepared militarily for a more unpredictable North Korea, and strengthened its support for UN Security Council sanctions on North Korean proliferation,” the Council on Foreign Relations has noted.

Japan’s government is preparing to position Patriot Advanced Capability missile defense batteries along the route of a possible North Korean missile strike on Guam, according to Nikkei Asian Review. The US and Japan cooperate closely on defense, and Japanese ships support the US’s Aegis missile defense systems at sea and on land.

Together, the US and Japan could field a potent mix of missile defenses that an expert told Business Insider would have a .96 probability of knocking down a single North Korean missile.

…

Australia, a long-time US ally, has stated that it will invoke a mutual defense if the US is attacked by North Korea.

“America stands by its allies, including Australia of course, and we stand by the United States,” Malcolm Turnbull, told 3AW, an Australian radio station.

“So be very, very clear on that. If there’s an attack on the US, the ANZUS Treaty would be invoked and Australia would come to the aid of the United States, as America would come to our aid if we were attacked,” Turnbull said, referencing a US-Australian mutual defense treaty.

…

But in North Korea’s corner, its main trading partner and treaty ally China, has sent a signal that it won’t risk backing Pyongyang.

Although it does not speak directly for the Chinese government, the state-run Global Times is strictly censored to contain no commentary that the Chinese Communist Party disagrees with. On Friday, the newspaper ran an editorial saying “China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral.”

I still don’t see why NK would be focusing on Guam. Guam’s far more distant than Japan and Japan would support the US in a more substantial way than Guam could. The US and Japan have treaties that would bring the US immediately in to war with NK were NK to attack Japan so why go to all the trouble of messing with an island thousands of miles farthe than Japan? Let’s also not forget that NK has a hatred of Japan thst far exceeds any issues it has with Guam.

I’m still seeing Chinese fingerprints on this, Sun Tzu lives. Why engage yourself when you can have a dependent puppet agitprop for you? China wants to see the US pull back its military forces as far as possible as it tries to create its Asian empire. Hawaii would be nice, US would be more hesitant to have Hawaii nuked than it would Guam – which most Americans can’t find on a map and many haven’t even heard about before this mess. Guam allows US air and naval firces to respond faster and more effectively than were they pushed back to Hawaii.
Let the negotiations begin, let’s see what China demands either through NK or directly.

Well, Hawaii is more than twice as far as Guam. And I’m sure you are correct about NK’s thinking about the difference in importance of the two targets to the USA. Hawaii is a state with a MUCH larger population.

Japan will shoot back whether the target is Japan or Guam, so there’s that.

Note China says they will cone in if the US fires first OR if the US tries a regime change. China’s saying it does not want a US-oriented Korea on its border, that’s why I think China’s plsying this game.
China knows the US will restrain Japan and China does not want to provoke Japan openly. China doesn’t want to present its agenda openly so it filters it through NK just as both Russia and the US used surrogates during the Cold War.
Chiba doesn’t want to go toe-to-toe with the US as I don’t believe they’ve finished their plans to do so. Mao said more than once that he’d easily lose 1/2 of the Chinese populstion to mert his goals and the folks in power now are the fruit of his political loins. They are still pushing enforced abortions and at almost 1.4 billion people they coukd afford to lose a lot of people. Oh, and they’ve been buying up gold with those foreign currency reserves for some time now.
I still think the Chinese will have the NK push the envelope to make the situation as threatening as possible before they go to the negotiation tables. The Chinese are hoping the Congress and American people will keep Trump’s bellicosity in check, after all they’ve pulled dangerous stunts with US military targets in the recent past without any repercussions, why think things have changed?

Sure they do, but do the American listeners? I’m already seeing the Leftist pundits pushing the fears that Trump is moving us to nuclear war and thevChinese know thst scares the crap out of much of the hedonistic public…remember the stink over Reagan mayvhing Russian forward deployment of nuclear weapons with nuke-armed cruise missiles? Russians had far more nukes in place slready in the DDR than Reagan moved into England.
Chinese are playing to materialistic US fears to pressure Trump. Again, let’s see what cones up at the negotiating table…unless we have a slip-up before then.

Mao is dead but he created modern Chona and much of his genetic political makeup is still there. Sun Tzu died 2500 years ago but his philosophies are still a major part of Chinese tactical and strategic thinking as von Clausewitz’s are ours. They have a different way of looking at hostory and its relevance to the present.
Remember the slew of Hollywood Leftist movies about the horrors of nuckear war/Reagan policies? It’s propaganda specifically manufactured by the Left to influence the middle and left-of-right population; you don’t need everyone on your side, just enough to make it seem so. One of the tenets of psywar.

I think you are taking a too literal definition of ‘shoot first’. Short of the US lobbing a round into Chinese natiobal territory the provication’s in the eye of the Chinese government beholder. Remember thevGulf of Tonkin?

We cone from different backgrounds and have different opinions and I’m sure there are many other opinions out there.
I’m looking at Chinese actions in recent history. They didn’t enter the Korean War because we shot at them, rather they pushed in to prevent the Korean Communist government from veing crushed and, incidentally, the UN troops were uncomfortably close to the Chibese border.
Look at recent Chibese actions from the 2001 force-down of a US EP-3 plane on Hainan Island through their ongoing and uncomfortably close actions against other US aircraft and ships in the Sea of Japan and the Sea of China. There was that Chinese attack submarine popping up smack in the middle of a US battle group in internstionsl waters…
Thry’ve gone head-to-head with the Japanese navy too, damaging ships and causing the Japanese to make some very warm statements. Less than a day ago the head of the Chinese Air Force said that the Japanese do not own the Sea of Japan. The Chinese say they own the Sea of China and in whose sea have the NK’s been dropping missiles in?
It’s all just opinions.

How about looking at it from the view that, with as dependent on so much of its goods from China, will the US risk a confrontation with China? What’s worth more to China, it’s holdings of US currency or its Asian empire?

Most of the goods we get from China we could live without. Can they live without the food they get from the US? The US sends five times as much food to China as they send to us. They have to feed 20% of the globe on 8% of the arable land. That’s a problem.

China’s been buying up US facilities to grow food, it now owns over 30% of US pork production. The USDA can be a bit disingenuous, it should differentiate between foods sent to China through/from totally US owned operations and ones owned totally or heavily by Chinese companies.
There’s also an interesting company in China that employs many top shelf scientists, including a retinue of Nobel laureates, thst specializes in creating GMO foods and you can bet they’re working on plants thst will grow in China’s more marginal lands. China’s also looking to move water to areas and increase their available lands…their water engineering abilities are well known.
China’s also building huge ports in Latin and South America and their use of the same food sources there thst we do is a gimme. I expect them to start investing heavily in expanding the South American meat industry we already use. The Japanese have had huge packing ships that load livestock and process them on the move for decades, watch the Chinese follow suit.
Then there’s fishing. There are a few countries that exploit the oceans worldwide and you can expect the Chinese to follow suit. As soon as they develop their bluewater navy they’ll be in a position to protect their interests by escorting their fishing fleets. They already have the basing from northern China all the way into the Arabian Sea for their navy, they just need enough ships for power projection.

Mornin’ czar! China leased a huge portion of Ukrainian land just before the regime change for food production. I don’t know what happened with that deal after though. I know they have built “cities” in Africa as well South America. I don’t think they need us for that much anymore outside of a place to offload counterfeit luxury good on eBay.

Probably. I recently watched a BBC program (several episodes) about how England had to scramble to produce enough food during WWII. When they entered the war they were importing 2/3 of their food (because it was cheaper.) That isn’t always a wise decision.

China’s quietly building a port in Baja that will be bigger than the old shipyard port in California and another huge one in Mexico to support the I-35 corridor initiative. They don’t want those ships going home empty and food would be a nice thing to send back. Mexico can produce food…there was this mysterious huge manmade green oasis we used to watch on satellite…all it takes is someone with money and a work ethic.

Kimmy has to hit Guam before it tips over and the target area is reduced…matter of accuracy in missiles……we put more troops there, Guam tips over according the Rep. Johnson….heck..just like Global Warming…Island tipping is endorsed by BLM University Scientists….

Kim just has to show that he CAN hit Guam, that makes it less secure to operate from. I believe China wants us out of the western Pacific so it can extend its ‘influence’ as THE power in the area. The US states extend as far as Hawaii and if the US gets pushed back to there it’s going to be hard to launch operations against an offensive China. The attack by the Japanese on December 7th was heavily moticated by the desire to cripple US naval operations in the Western Pacific but they didn’t hit the right stuff, it’s an old idea that still applies.
I’m watching to see if the US and nervous Asians create a SEATO-like organization and how China would react to that.